Female of the Species
by nancy fan
Summary: During a long, sleepless night, Maria LaGuerta begins to wonder what she might have missed out on.


**This fic is set during season 4 and contains spoilers for the entire season. **

**Written for lab for the yuletide writing challenge over at livejournal. Enjoy!**

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****"Don't forget that I cannot see myself....that my role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror." Jacques Rigaut**

Though it was almost three o' clock in the morning, Maria was frustratedly, still awake, unable to sleep as thoughts of her short-lived relationship with colleague, Angel Batista filtered through her mind. Ever glamourous, Maria normally wore very expensive, very sexy, silk nightdresses to bed but tonight she wore ugly flannel in protest. The bed felt too cold, too big, Maria having grown used to just reaching out and feeling the smooth warmth of her former lover's skin under her fingers.

Traditional means of coping with a breakup generally involved multiple boxes of chocolates accompanied by heaped bowls of strawberry ice-cream but tonight she had neither; Maria lucky to have grabbed a wilted looking gas station sandwich, such had been the craziness of the day. Besides, the situation between Maria and Angel wasn't technically a breakup. The couple hadn't separated because she was bored or that Angel had had an affair or that the sex had become boring (it hadn't). It had been a choice and the only choice either of them could have really made under the circumstances.

Sighing in annoyance, Maria turned over in the bed again, determined to get some sleep before morning would draw in and the sound of her alarm clock would signal the start of yet another day and all the blood drenched crime scenes it would undoubtably bring with it. A lone candle flickered on the windowsill, it's meagre light lending a yellow glow to the room and illuminating the shadows dancing merrily on the wall. Lavender, Maria realized dreamily, as she inhaled it's pungent scent lingering in the air. Her mother had always sworn by the stuff when she couldn't sleep. Her mother; the woman Maria had always sworn she would never turn into, the woman who had tirelessly worked three jobs just to keep the family afloat after Maria's asshole of a father left them, walking out on his family for some eighteen-year-old whore from the next town.

And there was the biggest, blackest mark of all against Angel. He had walked out on his family too and despite all of it, his loving, sensitive nature, his charisma, his attentiveness to her in bed, the knowledge of Angel's previous infidelity was always lingering at the back of Maria's mind and taunting her with the knowledge that maybe she wasn't so unlike her mother after all.

_She was probably better off without him._

Maria and men were never a good mix, anyway. They expected cooked meals and freshly ironed shirts and previous relationships had quickly floundered when they discovered that she was never going to be able to give them that. James Doakes had been different; he being the only man Maria could have ever really imagined herself settling down with. But even that relationship had come to an abrupt end, James unable to contend anymore with what he had (completely wrongly perceived, in Maria's opinion) her seemingly endless thirst for power and authority. Pulling the light comforter tightly under her chin, Maria sighed audibly as she stared blankly through the open curtains into the dark, starry night.

It never did her any good to linger too long on thoughts of her ex-lover. The memories were too raw, too painful and only exacerbated further by the knowledge that the majority of his former colleagues at Miami Metro believed him to be the infamous Bay Harbor Butcher.

Her heart pounding painfully, Maria closed her eyes, waiting for sleep mercifully to claim her.

--

_Fuck, she was tired. _Running her hand wearily over her immaculately styled hair, Maria calculated she had managed about two hours sleep at most before the dreaded drone of her alarm clock forced her to wakefulness.

Spooning the last of the yogurt into her mouth, Maria immediately busied herself with cleaning away the almost nonexistent mess from her usual chopped apple and yogurt breakfast. Friends had always commented on how tidy Maria kept her home, marveling at how everything had a place. But then, Maria had no children smearing chocolate on the sofa or leaving sticky fingerprints on the wall. Sometimes, when she sees them playing with such childish innocence, Maria thinks she would like that for herself someday and then she remembers her job and and dismisses the idea as impossible.

In work, things between them were confined strictly to the professional, the looks, the conversations, even the stolen glances. It had to be; their very jobs depended on it. But underneath all that careful composure, something was still stirring. She knew Debra noticed; the knowing look etched on the younger detective's face so blatantly obvious that it made Maria wonder if she wasn't the only member of the Miami Metro who had their suspicions.

_Not that that would even matter,_ she considered ruefully as she shuffled noisily through the carefully arranged piles of papers spread across her desk.

Debra wasn't the most discrete of people and if she had even an inkling that something was going on between the lieutenant and the sergeant, the whole of the Miami Metro would know about it before lunchtime.

"Thought you could do with some coffee,"

Glancing up from the ever growing mountain of paperwork , Maria smiled seeing Batista shouldering open the door of her office, their usual morning coffees clutched in both hands, a routine the pair had unwittingly perfected over the previous months. He had cut his hair, she noticed, gratefully accepting the steaming container of coffee, while eyeing her ex-lover thoughtfully.

"What?" Angel demanded quizzically, a bemused expression on his face as he looked up from the bagel he was vigorously spreading cream cheese on top of. "Have I got food on my face or something?"

_Shit, she was caught._

"No, sorry, I was just thinking," she replied dismissively, trying to hide her rapidly reddening cheeks by drawing his attention to the most recent development in the Vacation Murder case. "Morgan thinks she might have a witness to the latest shooting," she commented

"That's great news," he replies politely, taking a long drink from his cup of coffee before biting distractedly into the heavily coated bagel. "You want one?" he asked pushing the crumpled brown paper bag towards her in a flustered fashion, his eyes lowered purposely to the open file placed strategically in front of him.

"Definitely," Maria smiled, her cheeks burning furiously as she reached out for to withdraw a still warm bagel from the bag. Poppy seed, she noticed. Her favorite. Angel was always thoughtful like that. It was one of the things she really missed about him. That and his soft, sweet kisses and the way he made her feel when they were making love. Passing her the knife, Angel's hand brushed accidentally against hers, his fingers lingering just a second too long on her bare skin.

Her breath catching in her throat, Maria could feel Angel's warm gaze resting on her and the impulse to look up and catch his eye was almost irresistible. It would be so easy to reciprocate his affection, she thought wistfully for a moment, suddenly overcome with a sense of loss for the comfortable relationship they had once shared.

_This can't happen, _Maria reminded herself sternly as she pushed away her now cold cup of coffee.

"You want to go for a drink later, Lieutenant?" he asked her in his slow, teasing drawl

"I can't, Angel, sorry," Maria shrugged regretfully not even bothering to come up with some plausible excuse as to why she was unavailable. It was better this way.

The call to go to a crime scene was almost welcome.

--

Claire James had obviously been a woman of good taste, her bathroom newly decorated in that stark, clinical whiteness so favored by interior designers. Somehow, the wild sprays of red were even more shocking in a place so devoid of any other color. The victim's body lay sprawled out grotesquely in a blood drenched bathtub, her eyes possessing untold horror as they stared up lifelessly at the ceiling. The water was tinged a hideous red, a gash that extended up the entire length of her inner thigh responsible for that

"Fuck, what a way to go," Batista cursed, shaking his head in shocked disbelief as he surveyed the carnage in the small room.

The smell of decay was heavy and thick, Claire James' body lying cold in the bathtub for almost two days before an unsuspecting cleaner stumbled upon it.

Maria, on her part, could hardly bring herself to look at the bloodied remains of the woman. There was something about the impersonal, tidy apartment, that she found a little unsettling. Maybe it was the grand dining room table that was designed to seat six but only ever sat one or perhaps, the complete lack of photographs and happy family cluttering the wall but there was something about the woman's life that mirrored her own.

_Two whole days and nobody had missed her. _

It was a sobering thought.

The funeral would be a scantily attended event. Claire had little family and even fewer friends, her colleagues at work struggling to name even a single person she would have been close to. And though, the other residents of the relatively upmarket apartment block had clucked miserably over the event, they really only cared that they wouldn't be next, that it wouldn't be their lifeless body found next, sprawled out in their bath.

"You okay? You were a little quiet in there."

Feeling Angel's steady arm resting supportively on her shoulder, Maria allowed a small smile cross her face as she turned around to answer him.

"I'm fine," she lied, pulling her jacket a little tighter around her slim frame, despite the blistering heat outside.

"We hasn't seen a mess like that in years," Batista allowed softly, presumably putting down the lieutenant's unease to a sudden and inexplicable aversion to blood when the reality was that being left on her own was a fate a million times more terrifying to Maria than any grotesque act of violence that could be inflicted on her.

"Do you still want to go for that drink?" she asked Batista, still a little indecisively, the words gushing from her mouth in her desperation to get them out.

"If you're sure," he replied uncertainly, his hands dug deeply into his pockets. "I can pick you up at eight,"

There would be consequences, Maria knew, if Matthews ever found out. "Severe career ending consequences," he had warned and Maria didn't doubt his intent. Tom Matthews had never been her biggest fan but at that moment Maria didn't care.

"Sure," she smiled, running a perfectly manicured hand through her hair before sweeping back into the room with renewed confidence. Lieutenant Maria Laguerta had a crime scene to attend to.


End file.
